My Mom's Grape Pie

Ingredients:

4 cups Sovereign Coronation grapes (fresh or frozen)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
6 Tbsp cornstarch
plus water to make 2/3 cup liquid
recipe for a 9-inch double crust pie

Directions:

Mix de-stemmed grapes, sugar, water and lemon juice into a pot. If using frozen grapes, include any ice that had formed. Place pot on medium heat and allow to come to a boil, mixing occasionally.

Add cornstarch into a measuring cup and add enough water to make 2/3 cup liquid. Once grape mixture has come to a boil, add the cornstarch mixture. Continue to mix the filling until it no longer looks cloudy from the cornstarch mixture.

Remove the pot from the heat and pour filling into a bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. If this step is skipped, the filling will bubble up too much and create a mess in your oven.

Line a 9-inch pie dish with one pie crust. Pour the cooled fruit mixture into the crust. Cover with top crust. Crimp and flute edges. Pierce top crust with a fork to allow air to escape as pie is baking.

Bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 1 hour (until filling is bubbling inside).

Allow to cool a bit so that the filling has a bit of a chance to set up before serving.

NOTE: If you have Concord grapes or another good juice grape but don't want the seeds in your pie, just follow this step first and then continue with the directions above.

Wash grapes, and remove the skins. Save the skins. Place grape pulp in a large saucepan; mash a few at the bottom to release their juice. Cook over medium low heat until grapes come to a full boil. Remove pulp from heat, and press through a food mill/strainer to remove seeds and return to saucepan. Combine pulp and skins. Stir in sugar, water and lemon juice into the pot. Return pot to medium heat and allow to come to a boil, mixing occasionally.

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What my mom has to say about her pie:

We bought our first farm in 1976 and we were able to enjoy a wide variety of fruits (various pears, plums, apricots, and grapes). In the early 1990s we began to specialize in grapes. Running our farm has been a family affair and our boys are now grown and heavily involved in Niagara's grape & wine industry.

In 1989 I found a recipe for grape pie in one of my cookbooks and I was intrigued because I had never heard of a grape pie before. So I decided to try it and it became a family affair with all of my children helping. The original recipe called for Concord grapes. The grapes needed to be washed and de-stemmed and the grape peels needed to be removed. The grape pulp then had to be cooked until the seeds popped out. The pulp was then put through a strainer to remove the seeds, the peels were added back into the mixture and the remaining ingredients were added. It was labour intensive and very time consuming, but the result was a fabulous pie that quickly became my husband's favourite pie.

About 10 years ago, we received a master full of Sovereign Coronation grapes from a former employee. At first I wasn't quite sure what to do with quite so many grapes and then it hit me - grape pie!! Sovereigns are a seedless grape and the switch in grapes has made this pie so much easier to make. We also started growing Sovereigns and with the increased availability of the grapes, the number of grape pies in our household also increased.

These days, my grandchildren enjoy eating the grapes and from the time they were still very young, we would pick grapes in the fall. Many of those grapes were enjoyed right off the vine, but even more were frozen so that we could enjoy grape pie all year round. Our family has grown, but we get together for lunch on Sundays and grape pie is always on the dessert menu. Grape pie has been a hit, not only requested by my family, but also by our extended family and friends.


This recipe is also linked to...

Delicious Dishes
Sweet Indulgences Sunday
Sweet Treats Thursday
Food on Friday: Pies and Tarts
Sweet Tooth Fridays
Sweets for a Saturday
Simply Delish Saturday
It's a Blog Party's Fall Fest Recipes 2011